Thoughts from DFIRLABS

So there I was hard at work on a case this morning when my phone pinged. I had a LinkedIn message from one of my friends congradulating me for my work anniversary. Initially I was a little confused, and then it dawned on me that it was exactly 3 years ago that DFIRLABS was brought kicking and screaming into the world with one founding employee, me.

Three years later, our little family consists of four of us, all committed to providing the best digital forensics and incident response services that we can, not only in South Africa, but abroad as well.

What started as a dream has become solidified in reality and the with each new case we grow stronger and make another difference in the world.​

In our first three years we have done some really interesting cases, ranging from stock standard fraud cases committed using computers, to rather complex hacking cases. It has been great working such a variety of cases and being successful in each one. We set about being different and holding ourselves to the highest international standards in digital forensics, and I think that this has shown itself in the cases we have worked on and the results we have achieved.

One of my fondest memories in the last three years was when we convinced a fairly large corporation, that had regularly used another digital forensics service provider to give us a try on a case. We were happy to do the case pro bono so that the corporation could then compare apples with apples, and compare us with their existing digital forensics service provider. After doing the case and presenting what for us was a relatively straight forward affidavit, the client called and said to me "so is this what I should have been getting all along?"

That really made me happy, because we have prided ourselves on not simply sticking with the status quo when it comes to digital forensics in South Africa, but in trying to raise the standard in our profession.

Today is thus for me, not a celebration of only three years as a practice, but a celebration of daring to be different, or daring to aspire to the highest standards of scientific professionalism. After all at the end of the day we serve justice, and if we strive to be better, then the cause of justice is better served, and guilty people are convicted and innocent people vindicated. That is the real celebration.